7 ms·

Nuance is hard to convey in groups, but I believe that a small part of the problem is a lack of design. Many peoples' eyes glaze over when they see a wall of

Nuance is hard to convey in groups, but I believe that *a small part of the problem is a lack of design*. Many peoples' eyes glaze over when they see a wall of text in an email and they just skim rather than read. Some simple things to enhance communications can be the following. * Use a few bullet points to put attention on the main points you want to convey. * Without going overboard, use a tasteful amount of graphic design (bolding one key sentence or whatever). * Break up a giant nuanced email into sections. * If something is critical, make it visual: a picture, explainer video, or an infographic can be really useful for something key. This is harder than it looks. A quote attributed to Mark Twain is "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." It's a lot easier to go overboard than to distill what needs to be conveyed into the core elements.

hirundo 5y ago
I've frequently seen bullet points being treated exactly the way the author describes AND being treated: A reader will seize on a particular bullet and treat it in isolation, as if the other points didn't exist, nuance shredded. They're still useful but unmagical.
paviva 5y ago
The quote is from Pascal: "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte", "I made this one [the letter] longer, since I didn't have the leisure to make it shorter".
- karaterobot 5y ago
  In the spirit of generosity, I'll assume that was a very sly joke, and not an ironic misunderstanding of the point of the comment and the original post. Nice, I see what you did there!
  - capableweb 5y ago
    I don't think it's a joke, it's a correction of attribution. The quote seems to have been attributed to a lot of people, but earliest mention of similar message is indeed from Blaise Pascal, see https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/
    - slavik81 5y ago
      Quote Investigator is a gem. There's another page[1] on a similar quote: > If it is a ten-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; if it is a half-hour speech it takes me a week; if I can talk as long as I want to it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now. ~ Woodrow Wilson, as quoted in The Operative Miller 23 [1]: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/03/01/short-speech/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/03/01/short-speech/
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Brian_K_White 5y ago
    That was not an example of dropping nuance.
travisjungroth 5y ago
Appropriately, this doesn’t address the essence of the tweets. With two goals, people will use one as an excuse for the other. They’re receiving the communication. Lists and graphics won’t change that.
- pas 5y ago
  Isn't OKRs and other systems supposed to solve this? Don't communicate weightless, measureless, abstract fluff. Give clear goals, a utility function to combine them, deadlines or other time incentives (discounting or bonuses for being early), gather feedback, align with personal affinity, break down responsibility between groups (SREs, infra and platform teams provide the reliability, others build on that). Set budgets and fix the constraints, draw up the solution space and let the people work. It's not a mystery.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > With two goals, people will use one as an excuse for the other. That's a necessary part of having more than one goal. If they weren't in conflict, you'd only have one goal.
mcguire 5y ago
How much do you want to bet most people will read your first bullet point, ignore the rest, and drop all the nuance? Hell, I've learned not to ask more than one question in an email. The first one is the only one to get answered.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  I've definitely been that person to ask four bulleted questions in an e-mail and then send a reply asking where the answers for the other three are after I get a response that only addresses one of them.
- evancox100 5y ago
  If you put a list of bulleted, single-sentence questions and clearly state at the top something like “please answer the below questions” you will get your answers. Just have to make it really explicit and obvious that you expect each one answered
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Managers, or really anybody higher then you in the hierarchy, will still ignore the rest of the questions. Remember there's no consequences that they can perceive for only sending you a third of an answer.
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  This is so often said, and so bloody ridiculous a state of affairs for the information technology industry. How hard would it be to have a shared todo list where the team can put every blocking question which needs answering, and everyone who needs to answer can either do that or delegate the decision or approve skipping it? (And I don't mean a sluggish Jira / Electron / Teams / helpdesk which needs 50,000 fields entered to raise a ticket, either). I suspect it isn't done because nobody can usefully make all the decisions which other people want to push off onto other people, it would take inhuman amounts of time and attention. And that part of the reason "answering only the first question" happens is to drop most questions on the floor, with the idea that important ones will be raised again, as a way to filter out the huge number of unimportant questions. And as a way to deal with the fact that answering one question can change all subsequent questions - if the answer is "that's waiting on finance approval" then it might be about to have a budget cut, or be cancelled, or be delayed until a new financial year, and answering other questions is a waste of time. Still, for when the other questions are needed, it should be something computer people, programmers, IT specialists, can have machines keep track of without absolutely awful interfaces - and maybe involving automated email and replies if needed, like forum posts and newsgroups have had for decades.
bmurphy1976 5y ago
Here ya go: https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-precision https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-pre...
jollybean 5y ago
Those are good, but the big overarching rules are: 1) Assume no prior knowledge of a situation. 2) Provide some context for intent, objectives etc.. 3) Greatly simplify the thrust of the message and initially provided only the most highly relevant details. If you do that - then 'everything else is a detail' - meaning, if someone has a basic understanding of what the situation is, they can go into detail as needed. If context is not provided, people have no idea what is going on and their professionalism, conscientiousness and curiosity is wasted. I like the AMZN approach but I'll gather it could be done in a different way.
civilized 5y ago
I wouldn't dream of sending an email of more than a few sentences without breaking into sections. In longer messages I will also use highlighter to emphasize 1-3 key sentences and move supporting details to an appendix, footnotes, or links. But there are some people you can't get through to, no matter what.
Groxx 5y ago
And your very first line of text should say who it is for, and why they should care. Help your readers triage. They already get too many emails.
splittingTimes 5y ago
I started to follow this approach [1] 5 years ago and it is amazing how much clearer my own thoughts in communication have become. 1. Subjects with keywords. The subject clearly states the purpose of the email, and specifically, what you want them to do with your note. Keywords: ACTION, SIGN, INFO, DECISION, REQUEST, COORD 2. Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF). Lead your emails with a short, staccato statement that declares the purpose of the email and action required. The BLUF should quickly answer the five W’s: who, what, where, when, and why. An effective BLUF distills the most important information for the reader. 3. Be economical. Short emails are more effective than long ones, so try to fit all content in one pane, so the recipient doesn’t have to scroll. Use active voice, so it’s clear who is doing the action. If an email requires more explanation, you should list background information after the BLUF as bullet points so that recipients can quickly grasp your message. Link to attachments rather than attaching files. This will likely provide the most recent version of a file. Also, the site will verify that the recipient has the right security credentials to see the file, and you don’t inadvertently send a file to someone who isn’t permitted to view it. === [1] https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-precision https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-pre...
Aeolun 5y ago
> Without going overboard, use a tasteful amount of graphic design (bolding one key sentence or whatever). When this happens it screams corporate communication / fluff piece to me, and I generally skip it entirely. What would help more is if we didn’t get so much pointless information in our mailbox.
- xmprt 5y ago
  Somewhat agree. If something is so long that it requires bolding or graphic design to bring out the main point, then it's probably better off shortening it or adding a TL;DR at the top.
lanstin 5y ago
When ever I am working on some large project that involves others, I spend a lot of time searching for the slogans that capture the weighted average of the nuanced meaning. Simple and almost all applicable.
Pamar 5y ago
Nitpick: the quote about making a letter longer is usually attributed to Pascal: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/
dkarl 5y ago
Discrete sections, bullet points, infographics, and a touch of graphic design: that's PowerPoint. The advice I always get for PowerPoint is to delete everything in the slightly smaller font that "nobody reads anyway," so I think you're still limited to the amount of nuance you can fit into a few bullet points, unless those infographics are doing an awful lot of work.
chrischapman 5y ago
I really like that quote. It seems like it would work just as well for programmers too: "I didn't have time to write a 100 SLOC, so I wrote 1000."

Nuance is hard to convey in groups, but I believe that *a small part of the problem is a lack of design*. Many peoples' eyes glaze over when they see a wall of

hirundo 5y ago

I've frequently seen bullet points being treated exactly the way the author describes AND being treated: A reader will seize on a particular bullet and treat it in isolation, as if the other points didn't exist, nuance shredded. They're still useful but unmagical.

paviva 5y ago

The quote is from Pascal: "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte", "I made this one [the letter] longer, since I didn't have the leisure to make it shorter".

karaterobot 5y ago
In the spirit of generosity, I'll assume that was a very sly joke, and not an ironic misunderstanding of the point of the comment and the original post. Nice, I see what you did there!
- capableweb 5y ago
  I don't think it's a joke, it's a correction of attribution. The quote seems to have been attributed to a lot of people, but earliest mention of similar message is indeed from Blaise Pascal, see https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/
  - slavik81 5y ago
    Quote Investigator is a gem. There's another page[1] on a similar quote: > If it is a ten-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; if it is a half-hour speech it takes me a week; if I can talk as long as I want to it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now. ~ Woodrow Wilson, as quoted in The Operative Miller 23 [1]: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/03/01/short-speech/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/03/01/short-speech/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  That was not an example of dropping nuance.

travisjungroth 5y ago

Appropriately, this doesn’t address the essence of the tweets. With two goals, people will use one as an excuse for the other. They’re receiving the communication. Lists and graphics won’t change that.

pas 5y ago
Isn't OKRs and other systems supposed to solve this? Don't communicate weightless, measureless, abstract fluff. Give clear goals, a utility function to combine them, deadlines or other time incentives (discounting or bonuses for being early), gather feedback, align with personal affinity, break down responsibility between groups (SREs, infra and platform teams provide the reliability, others build on that). Set budgets and fix the constraints, draw up the solution space and let the people work. It's not a mystery.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> With two goals, people will use one as an excuse for the other. That's a necessary part of having more than one goal. If they weren't in conflict, you'd only have one goal.

mcguire 5y ago

How much do you want to bet most people will read your first bullet point, ignore the rest, and drop all the nuance? Hell, I've learned not to ask more than one question in an email. The first one is the only one to get answered.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago
I've definitely been that person to ask four bulleted questions in an e-mail and then send a reply asking where the answers for the other three are after I get a response that only addresses one of them.
evancox100 5y ago
If you put a list of bulleted, single-sentence questions and clearly state at the top something like “please answer the below questions” you will get your answers. Just have to make it really explicit and obvious that you expect each one answered
- XorNot 5y ago
  Managers, or really anybody higher then you in the hierarchy, will still ignore the rest of the questions. Remember there's no consequences that they can perceive for only sending you a third of an answer.
jodrellblank 5y ago
This is so often said, and so bloody ridiculous a state of affairs for the information technology industry. How hard would it be to have a shared todo list where the team can put every blocking question which needs answering, and everyone who needs to answer can either do that or delegate the decision or approve skipping it? (And I don't mean a sluggish Jira / Electron / Teams / helpdesk which needs 50,000 fields entered to raise a ticket, either). I suspect it isn't done because nobody can usefully make all the decisions which other people want to push off onto other people, it would take inhuman amounts of time and attention. And that part of the reason "answering only the first question" happens is to drop most questions on the floor, with the idea that important ones will be raised again, as a way to filter out the huge number of unimportant questions. And as a way to deal with the fact that answering one question can change all subsequent questions - if the answer is "that's waiting on finance approval" then it might be about to have a budget cut, or be cancelled, or be delayed until a new financial year, and answering other questions is a waste of time. Still, for when the other questions are needed, it should be something computer people, programmers, IT specialists, can have machines keep track of without absolutely awful interfaces - and maybe involving automated email and replies if needed, like forum posts and newsgroups have had for decades.

bmurphy1976 5y ago

Here ya go: https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-precision https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-pre...

jollybean 5y ago

Those are good, but the big overarching rules are: 1) Assume no prior knowledge of a situation. 2) Provide some context for intent, objectives etc.. 3) Greatly simplify the thrust of the message and initially provided only the most highly relevant details. If you do that - then 'everything else is a detail' - meaning, if someone has a basic understanding of what the situation is, they can go into detail as needed. If context is not provided, people have no idea what is going on and their professionalism, conscientiousness and curiosity is wasted. I like the AMZN approach but I'll gather it could be done in a different way.

civilized 5y ago

I wouldn't dream of sending an email of more than a few sentences without breaking into sections. In longer messages I will also use highlighter to emphasize 1-3 key sentences and move supporting details to an appendix, footnotes, or links. But there are some people you can't get through to, no matter what.

Groxx 5y ago

And your very first line of text should say who it is for, and why they should care. Help your readers triage. They already get too many emails.

splittingTimes 5y ago

I started to follow this approach [1] 5 years ago and it is amazing how much clearer my own thoughts in communication have become. 1. Subjects with keywords. The subject clearly states the purpose of the email, and specifically, what you want them to do with your note. Keywords: ACTION, SIGN, INFO, DECISION, REQUEST, COORD 2. Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF). Lead your emails with a short, staccato statement that declares the purpose of the email and action required. The BLUF should quickly answer the five W’s: who, what, where, when, and why. An effective BLUF distills the most important information for the reader. 3. Be economical. Short emails are more effective than long ones, so try to fit all content in one pane, so the recipient doesn’t have to scroll. Use active voice, so it’s clear who is doing the action. If an email requires more explanation, you should list background information after the BLUF as bullet points so that recipients can quickly grasp your message. Link to attachments rather than attaching files. This will likely provide the most recent version of a file. Also, the site will verify that the recipient has the right security credentials to see the file, and you don’t inadvertently send a file to someone who isn’t permitted to view it. === [1] https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-precision https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-pre...

Aeolun 5y ago

> Without going overboard, use a tasteful amount of graphic design (bolding one key sentence or whatever). When this happens it screams corporate communication / fluff piece to me, and I generally skip it entirely. What would help more is if we didn’t get so much pointless information in our mailbox.

xmprt 5y ago
Somewhat agree. If something is so long that it requires bolding or graphic design to bring out the main point, then it's probably better off shortening it or adding a TL;DR at the top.

lanstin 5y ago

When ever I am working on some large project that involves others, I spend a lot of time searching for the slogans that capture the weighted average of the nuanced meaning. Simple and almost all applicable.

Pamar 5y ago

Nitpick: the quote about making a letter longer is usually attributed to Pascal: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/

dkarl 5y ago

Discrete sections, bullet points, infographics, and a touch of graphic design: that's PowerPoint. The advice I always get for PowerPoint is to delete everything in the slightly smaller font that "nobody reads anyway," so I think you're still limited to the amount of nuance you can fit into a few bullet points, unless those infographics are doing an awful lot of work.

chrischapman 5y ago

I really like that quote. It seems like it would work just as well for programmers too: "I didn't have time to write a 100 SLOC, so I wrote 1000."